Black: Steer chase gives chance to look on the bright side

There always seem to be folks who need to say something good, even at the worst of times. Like Mrs. Custer. She might have said, “Well, on the bright side, at least he was wearing clean undies.”

Last spring we set out to find an evasive 300-pound steer; we’ll call him Rompy. We made a big circle and never found him, but we did discover a leak in the water line. Just luck, maybe, but on the bright side, it made the ride worth it.

The next day we rode out early and found Rompy with his mother and a couple of other cows. All went well. We sorted off Rompy at the trap and took him to the headquarters with intentions to hold him overnight for a sale the next day.

We unsaddled, and I stuck a water hose through the boards of the little pen where Rompy was being held. Pretty good morning, I was thinking. Then Rompy came unglued.

He could see daylight through a 3-foot pipe gate into the loading alley. He took four runs at it. I ran around the other side to frighten him back. It didn’t work. On his fifth try he crashed over the top, bending the rail perpendicular. I dove out of the way as he sailed over me.

I looked back over my shoulder and remembered thinking this must be what a torpedo looks like leaving a submarine! We would see him again 30 minutes later on a big ridge overlooking town. We tracked him half a mile, through one fence and into a big canyon.

With a huge dose of luck (finding him), enough opportunities (catching him), and two stout horses (dragging him), we got him to a road. My partner hog-tied him, and I went to get the rescue unit.

Our location was unreachable by trailer, so I brought the old pickup. I loaded it up with an assortment of possibly useful items and returned to the scene. The steer was still on the fight and too heavy to lift or manhandle. After much cowboy cogitation we took two 8-foot 2-by-12 boards and laid a ramp from the tailgate to Rompy. We tried to push him up, but he wouldn’t slide.

I dug through the box and came up with a come-a-long, however, we had no place to chain it.

“Wait a minute!” I said. “Flip over that gooseneck turnover ball and hook it there!”

We flipped it over, chained it to the ball, pulled out the cable and ran it through some cotton rope we had wrapped around the hog tie.

My partner started cranking, and I kept the head and tail ends balanced as we dragged Rompy into the bed of the pickup an inch and a grunt at a time.

It was as much fun as changing a split-rim tire on a Peterbuilt. All three of us looked like we had been dragged through a knothole. Even Rompy lost his steam.

But, on the bright side, I guess, we could have been grape farmers. I don’t think we’d ever been able to load a 300-pound wild raisin ... ain’t nothin’ to tie to!

Baxter Black is a veterinarian and cowboy poet. His column appears weekly and airs at 6:20 a.m. each Monday on KGNC Talk Radio 710. He can be reached at baxterblack.com or 1-800-654-2550.